At Long Last, The 1997 Dolan Middle School Time Capsule Has Been Found

Stamford CT

17 June, 2022

5:47 PM

Description

STAMFORD, CT — At the end of the school year in 1997, then Dolan Middle School social studies teacher and current Westhill High School Principal Michael Rinaldi had an idea for one last class project. Rinaldi was set to take on an administrator role the following year, so he wanted to come up with something special to commemorate his teaching days, while also being educational. In an effort to teach students about what life and culture was like in 1997, Rinaldi had students put together a time capsule. Students in his four classes contributed items such as Beanie Babies, snap bracelets, newspapers and a copy of Teen Magazine. A 3.5 inch floppy disk was thrown in for good measure, and the students wrote letters to their future selves and recorded a video on a VHS tape. Rinaldi buried the time capsule in the front of the school, and gave each student a laminated card with a reminder: meet at Dolan Middle School to dig up the time capsule on June 8, 2022 at 4 p.m. George Beratis, a student of Rinaldi's in 1997, was entrusted to hold onto a sealed envelope that contained contact information for everyone. The plan was to call each seven digit number — nine digit numbers didn't exist then — in April 2022 to get the word out, and put an ad in the newspaper about the reunion. With the invention of social media, however, Beratis said planning for the reunion and unearthing of the time capsule leading up to the big day took about an hour. Sure enough, on June 8 at 4 p.m., about 20 former students — now adults — showed up to Dolan, and reminisced with each other about days gone by. Former student Adam Bull, who works for the city of Stamford, has seen Rinaldi over the years and was always reminded about June 8, 2022. "Thinking about it and remembering that it was coming up was a really cool thing," he said. Marge Lilienthal was there for her daughter, Jenna Goldstein, who lives in Denver, Colo. and couldn't make it. "[This day] seemed so far off when she was in seventh grade," Lilienthal said. A livestream was broadcast online. Some still had their laminated cards. Rinaldi dug furiously. Digging began Wednesday, June 8. (Richard Kaufman/Patch) But after a few hours, the time capsule was nowhere to be found. Someone with a metal detector was called in, but that didn't help. Reinforcements from the janitorial staff showed up, shovels at the ready, but still, nothing. Some former students wondered if it was buried somewhere else on the school grounds. With darkness falling, the students departed and Rinaldi went home empty-handed. On the morning of June 11, Rinaldi went back to Dolan. After a couple hours of digging maybe two or three feet from the main hole, there it was. "When I discovered it, I hit a corner of the lid. I wiped it with my hand, and I knew what it was. I just sat in the hole by myself and just felt relief and just a real sense of satisfaction," Rinaldi said. "I sat there maybe for 10 minutes just smiling and happy. And I got back to work to dig it out... I didn't want to let the kids down. Tweny-five years ago I told them this was going to work. Twenty-five years ago I told them I'd dig it up, and I had this moment where I said, 'I can't let these guys down, I have to find this thing as soon as possible.'" Last Wednesday, a VCR was set up and ready to go inside the Dolan cafeteria so the former students could watch their VHS tape, go through the contents of the time capsule and have a casual dinner with each other. Rinaldi hopes to meet up with his former students again, perhaps in September when everyone is back together for their 20th Stamford High School reunion, but nothing is finalized yet. Rinaldi posted to social media, letting his former students know about his discovery. "I'm quite confident you don't remember much about seventh grade social studies," Rinaldi said in one of his videos. "But I hope if I taught you anything, I taught you to never, ever give up." At the end of the video, he smiled and panned down to the time capsule, which was covered in dirt.